Süleymaniye Mosque Tavel Guide

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Located on the Third Hill of Istanbul, the Süleymaniye Mosque is an Ottoman imperial mosque and one of the best-known sights of Istanbul.

The Süleymaniye Mosque was built in 1550 and finished in 1558. Like other imperial mosques in Istanbul, the Süleymaniye Mosque was designed as a külliye, or complex with adjacent structures to service both religious and cultural needs. It was consisted of the mosque itself, a hospital (darüşşifa), primary school, public baths (hamam), a Caravanserai, four Qur'an schools (medrese), a specialized school for the learning of hadith, a medical college, and a public kitchen (imaret) . Many of these structures are still in existence.

The mosque is preceded by a monumental courtyard (avlu) on its west side. The courtyard is of exceptional grandeur with a colonnaded peristyle with columns of marble, granite and porphyry. At the four corners of the courtyard are the four minarets, and the minarets have a total of 10 galleries (serifes), which by tradition indicates that Suleiman I was the 10th Ottoman sultan. The main dome is 53 meters high and has a diameter of 27. 5 meters. In the garden, there are two mausoleums (türbe) including the tombs of Sultan Suleiman I, his wife Hürrem Sultan (Roxelana) and their daughter Mihrimah Sultan.